The Lord answered her Martha, Martha you are worried and upset about many things but one thing is necessary. Mary has made the right choice and it will not be taken away from her. Luke 10:11
When I talk to many of the women in our community, overwhelm seems to be a common theme. Many of us have this internal struggle to understand “what is it that I should be doing?” More often than not though instead of taking the time to sit and ask God for the answer to this, we get caught up in the hustle and bustle and another day, week or month has passed before we know it. We grow accustomed to this pace and normalize it with phrases like “everything will work itself out in the end,” but in actuality, we end up cheating ourselves of one of the greatest blessings God promises us – peace.
I found myself in a place of hustle and bustle just this week and I knew me and God’s conversations seemed to be dry, mundane and repetitive at best but I wasn’t willing to sit still long enough to ask the right questions. Instead I prayed my little pitty pat prayer figuring we’d get to it eventually and when we did he told me the same thing he told Mary in this passage “You are worried and upset about many things..but only one thing is necessary.”
Even in this time of quarantine I’ve seen countless posts of what projects people should devote themselves to in this season and I can’t lie to you. I thought I was going to be in that same group too. These posts have convinced us that in the next two weeks or less we are going to write our book, launch our blog, lose 20 lbs, go natural AND launch the podcast.
Now here’s the thing. If you choose one of the items, that’s perfectly fine but the problem comes in when 10 business days pass by and you feel disappointed because you were only to knock out one of these projects. But the truth is, if you picked one thing and knocked it out, that would be a major success and I bet the quality would be better than if you tried to master all these objectives.
So how do you determine what that one thing is?
- Slow Down
- Seek God
- Be Obedient
Going back to our focus verse, Martha was moving around from thing to thing, only when she slowed down was she able to notice – Yo, Mary isn’t even helping!
- Slowing down for me, typically looks like journaling. It requires me to get clear on my thoughts and I can’t really rush through it, because once I have made the effort to actually sit still and get my pen out, words typically flow like a faucet
Seek God
- After Martha slowed down and noticed Mary wasn’t helping she did the next best thing – she sought God (Jesus) for advice – Tell her to help me! She didn’t realize that in acknowledging God she would receive an answer she didn’t expect. “Martha you are worried about many things but only one thing is necessary.”
- What might your one thing be?
- Are you afraid to ask?
- Do you think it might be the very thing you’ve been fearing?
- Does God want you to work on a physical aspect of yourself? Is it a spiritual thing? Do you need to reconcile a relationship? Is there a new business venture you should be researching?
Be Obedient
- Matthew 6:33 says “Seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness and all these things will be added unto you.” Now practically, depending on your season of life this does not mean your entire day is to be filled with prayer and fasting but putting God first does mean that when he tells you to move you move
- If He tells you to sit still that’s what you do.
- Many of us are starters but how many of us actually finish? Are we determined to push through til the end even if the blessing doesn’t come in the timeline we expected?
- Will we be like Nehemiah and stay on our wall until our assignment is complete or will we abandon it for the newest, shiniest thing.
If you slow down, seek God and do what He tells you to do, you’ll be filled with so much peace because when distractions come you can say “Nah bruh” with relative ease. Not only that but you’ll position yourself to be used in many more ways, because you’ve showed God He can trust you to obey.
- So, with all that said, what will your one thing be?
- What would it look like for you to focus your time there for the remainder of the quarantine?
- How would your life look different if you were able to finish this?
- How might it free up your creativity in the future when you want to work on other projects?
If you don’t know Jesus Christ, getting to know him is a great one thing and even if you do maybe this season will help you grow a deeper relationship with him and stop just group dating.
*This Bible study was originally hosted on Instagram Live. Be sure to join us on Thursday evenings at 7 p.m. You can get alerts by following @theblackgirlwithpurpose